In order to help my 36 week pregnant wife with our 19 mo old daughter, I've been splitting up my brewing. I mash and sparge after our daughter goes to bed and put the kettle in the fridge overnight. The next day after she goes down for a nap I boil, cool and pitch. It's been working great. Now I want to try a batch that calls for First Wort Hops and I'm wondering if having the hops sit in the wort in the fridge over night will cause any problems. Can anyone see any problems doing this?

I would add them to the kettle when you take them out of the fridge. Letting them steep as you come to boil. If you wanted, you could even pause at about 75C for 40 min or so. In one of my extract batches many moons ago I added the bittering hops too early, over anticipated the boil, I was protecting against a boil-over. The result was similar to the effect of FWH.

Just throw them in when you sparge. I have done it several times with no ill effects. What can go wrong? All you are doing is giving the goodies in the hops more time to stew and get into your brew, plus the antiseptic effects of the hops will help inhibit any nasties from growing.

Hey, Mountain Jack. My little girl was 20 months old when my wife delivered twin boys. I needed brewing for my sanity the next year. None of them are showing any interest in brewing yet. When I bottled my first batch 5 years ago, my girl stuck a finger in, tasted, and said "mmmmmm".

So if I add the hops during the sparge and let them sit overnight, it's kind of like a pre-dry hop. But then when the wort is boiled will the bitterness be extracted just the same as if I went right to the boil with FWHs? I guess what I'm asking is will I lose some IBUs in the process that I should make up for with more hops? MMMmm...more hops.

Robert you and your wife have your hands full. I'm still trying to figure out how we are going to maintain a balance with a 20 mo old and ONE newborn.